Olympic Beach Volleyballers To Wear QR Bar Code Bikinis [Photos]

Joe Kinsey

It what could be considered a mini-advertising coup, a British-based gambling site (Betfair) has purchased advertising space on the bikini uniforms of two 2012 Olympics beach volleyballers. In a story that has the U.K. tabs in a frenzy, it has been announced that Shauna Mullin and Zara Dampney will get five-figures to have a QR smartphone code on their bums. The idea is that you’ll hit pause on your DVR, scan the code and be sent to the Betfair site. Will it work? Probably not, but this is a genius marketing idea.

The British duo of Mullin and Dampney are currently ranked 26th in the world and are Britains only ’12 hope in beach volleyball. Logic says they’ll be destroyed fairly quickly, but the novelty of the QR codes should keep the PR machine humming along.

Betfair’s Andy Lulham said: ‘There is huge interest in beach volleyball and we want to ensure that our advertising campaign is seen and remembered by as many sports fans as possible.

‘As far as we’re aware this is the first time QR codes have been used in in-play sports advertising and what better way to test its effectiveness than by putting them on one of the places that is likely to get photographed the most.’

As cutting edge as it is for a beach volleyball duo to jump on the QR wagon, it’s interesting that the team doesn’t have an actual website. It’s under construction. So they must have a huge Twitter following, right? Wrong. Dampney only has 164 followers. Mullin isn’t much better – 185.